


Learning Curve

by psyraah



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Character Study, Garrison trio, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-13
Updated: 2017-12-13
Packaged: 2019-02-14 03:20:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12998742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psyraah/pseuds/psyraah
Summary: The Galaxy Garrison has a name for training some of the best and the brightest. It's rough, tough, and many would agree not an all together pleasant experience. Lance, Katie, and Hunk can all attest to that.The Paladins of Voltron are legendary, unmatched in their intellect and fighting prowess, and the only hope against the Galra Empire. Everything the Garrison should have trained them for. But Lance, Pidge, and Hunk know that there's something that the Garrison didn't teach them, something that took being light years from home for the three of them to understand:Heart.





	Learning Curve

**Author's Note:**

> My contribution to the Garrison Trio Zine, it was fun to work with characters that I don't write very often! There are more zine pieces on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/garrisontrio) and [Tumblr](https://garrisontriozine.tumblr.com/).

**PILOT**

Lance would be the first to say that, as a whole, his team is…bad.

Okay, they’re meant to _gel_ , right? When he arrived at the Garrison, he dreamt of being part of a trio of heroes, blasting his way through the ranks with his two best buddies beside him.

Problem is, they’re nowhere _near_ best buddy territory, even after months. Hunk is, sure, but Pidge? Lance can’t get a read on him, and he knocks back every suggestion to hang out. Every time! Lance would be more worried about the guy’s social wellbeing if he weren’t busy being offended.

But he can get through all that. Lift your head high and keep walking, his Ma would say, and he’ll do just that. Drag the two of them—kicking and screaming, if it comes to it—with him to glory.

Except it’s not so much kicking and screaming as snide remarks and excessive worrying.

“Lance? I, er, think that’s where—”

Lance rolls his eyes. “I know the route, Hunk.”

“No, Hunk’s right, Lance. You need—”

“I know the way!” Pidge’s poor navigation screwed them over in the last sim; there’s no way Lance is listening to _that_ again. The entire class is watching; he can’t afford another stuff up. He’ll just zip through this bit, shave a few seconds off and—

The monitor beeps, telling him that he did, in fact, miss the turn off.

“ _Told_ you,” Pidge mutters.

Lance scowls. “Easy fix,” he says, with confidence he doesn’t feel. “Watch this!”

He pushes the engine to max, swinging their shuttle around in a quick dive. He can see the entrance now, a narrow tunnel between two stone pillars. He just needs more speed…

“I don’t feel well…”

“Hunk, not _now_.”

“Lance, you’re going too fast, we’re gonna—”

There’s a horrible scraping noise, and their ship shudders.

“—crash! Hunk, we need you to—”

But Hunk is too busy not making a mess of their ship. Lance glances back, starting to panic. “Hunk! I think we lost a—I don’t know what we lost!”

Hunk, amazingly, manages to stand, looking paler than usual. “On it.”

Lance grins. “That’s my guy.” He turns back around—

“Look out!”

Pidge’s warning comes too late, and they’re face to face with a rocky overhang.

The screen blacks out, leaving their stunned faces reflected in it. As the shocked silence drags on, Lance drops his gaze; he can’t bear to see the disappointment in the others’ eyes anymore.

* * *

Lance would be the first to say that, as a whole, Team Voltron has gotten pretty good at this whole mission business. They’ve been together long enough to operate as smoothly as…well, Lance himself, which means that mission failures are rare.

Lance is also usually the first to realise when it’s gone to hell. He’s always been a touch pessimistic, and while he used to (and sometimes still does) hide it beneath bluster and bravado, he recognises the sinking feeling in his stomach.

“Guys, I think we have a problem,” Hunk reports.

When Lance glances to his right, the Red Lion is flying away…straight at a bunch of Galra warships that were _not_ there two vargas—or whatevers—ago. “You’re right on that, Hunky Boy,” Lance mutters, turning Blue around. “How many times do I have to save you, Keith?”

“Lance, wait! The ship with the prisoners, it’s getting away!” Pidge’s voice is urgent, and Lance pauses. Though Lance hates to admit it, Keith doesn’t look like he needs rescuing, the Red Lion tearing through ships left, right, and centre. So he turns Blue around quickly, shooting off in the direction of the ship they’d been tracking.

“I’ve got Keith,” Shiro says. “Lance, Pidge, Hunk, you guys deal with the ship.”

“Roger that.”

Pidge’s face appears on Lance’s screen. “They’re opening up a wormhole; you’re gonna have to be quick. And shoot to disable, not blow up!”

“Engine should be at the back, just under that tail thing they like putting on their ships,” Hunk adds. “It’s pretty small…you got this, Lance?”

Lance steadies Blue, watches as the wormhole opens up right in front of his target. “You bet I do.”

Lance catches Pidge’s eye, grins, and takes his shot.

 

 

 **COMMUNICATIONS SPECIALIST**  

They messed up.

Katie knows exactly where everything went wrong. It started, like always, with Lance being an absolute _pain_ , playing it up for the crowds. That had led to his distraction at the crucial point where they were meant to guide their ship through the opening of a tunnel. His sudden swoop to repair his mistake set off Hunk, and next thing you knew, the scraped wing couldn’t be repaired and their systems had gone up in a puff of smoke.

Katie wishes her teammates would disappear just as easily.

She doesn’t have _time_. She needs to fly under the radar, and can’t afford to be constantly pulled up on poor performance. She has a family to find, and every second spent wasting time _not_ doing that is just that—a waste.

Even now, she can tell that Lance is trying to cheer them both up. Hunk is smiling tentatively as Lance laughs; never mind that they’re almost bottom of the class and will have to take a bunch of _other_ tests to make up for this one.

“Look,” Lance says, swinging his obnoxious arms around both Hunk and herself. “Let’s get out of here. I mean, c’mon, what’s a sim gonna teach us about the real thing? We can have another go later, and if we take the rerun they’re doing next week—”

Katie shoves his arm off, no patience for his games. “‘What’s a sim got to do with the real thing?’ Are you serious? If you acted up like you did today in real life, we’d all be dead!”

Lance has the audacity to look _offended_. “Yeah, but it wasn’t, and we’re not! What would you know about piloting anyway?”

“A lot more than you, apparently.” Katie scowled. “You were too rash, you weren’t concentrating, you were meant to gradually decrease your speed as we entered that stretch of the canyon—”

“Yeah, it sounds easy when you say it like that! It’s different when you’re actually, you know, driving, and _not_ a robot.”

Katie doesn’t have time for his excuses. “And you,” she says, turning to Hunk. “You need to deal with your vomiting thing. It’s getting in the way.”

Hunk fidgets, and somewhere deep down, Katie feels a little bad. ‘Go easy, hothead,’ Matt would’ve said—if he were here. Remembering that he isn’t just makes it ten times worse.

“It’s not like I can really help it,” Hunk says, whatever beginnings of the smile that Lance dragged up all gone now.

“Well, you’re gonna have to. It’s holding us back.” She turns away, ignoring the crumpling of Hunk’s expression, and Lance’s squawking. There are more important things to worry about than their hurt feelings right now.

* * *

They messed up.

That much is certain. Keith rushed in too soon, of course, and Lance missed the vital point on the Galra ship that would’ve been able to stop the prisoners aboard being whisked away. They failed, and disappointment is heavy in the air as they drag themselves back to the bridge from their hangars. Frankly, they’re lucky to be alive—Keith and Shiro had been barely holding on, the other Paladins joining them to form Voltron only once it was clear that their target had escaped.

Lance looks deflated, though he’s trying not to show it. Must hurt, the failing shot being his. They relied on him, and he wasn’t able to pull through. Keith looks similarly shamefaced, and his usual fire is subdued as they trudge down the hallway.

They’re Pidge’s family. They’ve been together long enough for that to be true, so she jogs Lance’s side with her elbow. “Hey, why the long face? We got back in one piece.”

Lance looks at her, still with that horrible slump to his shoulders. She feels pretty gross too, but he looks so put out that it’s hard not to grin widely. Lance is so incredibly attuned to other people’s emotions; show even an inkling of disappointment and he’d take it on himself. She can’t do that to him.

“C’mon, we couldn’t have known that they would have back up.” And she would be kicking herself for _weeks_ for not realising.

“Pidge is right,” Shiro says quietly.

“Even Shiro says I’m right,” Pidge says, forcing smugness into her voice. “So you gotta listen to me.”

Finally, Lance snorts, and Hunk’s hand settles on her shoulder.

“Shiro always thinks you’re right,” Lance complains, but there’s a bit more life to him now, and Pidge will take it.

They pause once they’re at the bridge. “Debrief?” Keith asks, glancing at Shiro, before sweeping his gaze over the rest of the team.

Shiro looks uncertain. There’s a weight on his shoulders that Pidge recognises all too well now, a tension to the set of his mouth which means that he’s close to breaking.

“Let’s take a break,” Pidge says, before Shiro speaks. “Get cleaned up. Hunk can make us weird food. I mean, there’s not much different between debriefing now or in a few vargas, right?”

Hunk looks a little heartened at the idea of making food, and the others look heartened by the idea of being able to eat Hunk’s food.

“I guess…Pidge is right again,” Shiro says slowly, and he smiles tiredly. Pidge is going to have to make sure that man is all right later, but for the moment, the tension and the disappointment is starting to lighten. “Let’s get cleaned up. We can—we can figure out where we went wrong later.”

Pidge nods, pleased when Lance sighs and makes plans of dipping in the pool, and Hunk starts listing off ingredients he wants to test out. There’s time later for planning and analysing and deconstructing.

For now, there are more important things.

 

 

**ENGINEER**

Hunk does _not_ want to do this.

“No,” he says firmly. “No. No.”

Then, again, with feeling. “No.”

Next to him, Hunk can almost _hear_ Lance roll his eyes. Which is, you know, impossible. But it’s also Lance, so maybe not.

“C’mon, Hunk. We take next week’s sim, we can boost our marks up!”

“Lance is right,” Pidge says. Which Pidge _never_ says, but what do you know? Apparently today is the day that everyone decided to _freak Hunk out_. “We don’t know what the next test will be. We’ve got all the info on this one; it’s pretty much today’s but just a couple more loops. And yeah, it’s hard, but at least we _know_ that.”

“Or, what about this?” Hunk says. “What about we wait to do the harder stuff when, you know, we actually get there? D’you know what happens if we fail? We like, _fail_. We flunk out. We get held back a year.” He swallows, terrified. What will he tell his parents? “You said it yourself: it’s hard. Which is why it’s a horrible idea. We’ll only get one shot.”

Pidge sighs. “Yes, but we know what mistakes we made today. We can work on them before we do it.”

But still, Hunk shakes his head. He knows he’s being stubborn, _maybe_. He knows he’s letting his fear rule him; the familiar anxiety is crawling around in his stomach, the same fear that almost told him not to apply to the Garrison, because you could never fail if you never tried.

“We’ll be right there with you,” Lance says. “C’mon, buddy. What do you say?”

The fear always wins.

He sits on his bed, crossing his arms. “I still say no.”

Hunk sees their disappointment. It’s how Lance seems to deflate, leaving his room with an uncertain, “Okay,” and the thunderous expression that crosses Pidge’s face before he storms out, too.

Hunk sees it. He’s not stupid.

But he is scared. If they take it, he’s scared of failing. If they don’t, he’s afraid he’s made the wrong choice. He’s scared of what his parents will think, what his team will think, what his peers will think.

The tears come slowly, and he cries alone in his room, his team gone, defences scattered to the winds.

* * *

 Hunk does not want to do this.

He’s _right_ in the middle of finally testing out his newest recipe and he does not want to abandon it. But two days after their failed mission, Pidge comes slamming into the kitchen when they’re eating breakfast. By the excitement in her eyes, Hunk’s not going to have time to finish cooking.

“I found the ship,” she says, hopping from side to side. “It’s on one of the planets on the outskirt of the Thesian Galaxy, I tracked the signal—”

Allura’s on her feet immediately. “Show us.”

“Here.” Pidge throws up a hologram to surround them, and Hunk puts down his pot of goop with a sigh.

“…It’s surrounded by Galra ships,” he observes.

“Well, yeah, that happens when we’re _looking_ for a Galra ship.” Pidge sighs, her enthusiasm turning into something halting. “I can’t see how many; their shields are too good. But with my calculations, I _think_ we can handle it. But we will have to split up; there are too many of them.”

Hunk swallows. He never likes hearing those two words. “Split up?”

Shiro looks sharply at Pidge. “Are you sure that’s the only way?” Apparently he doesn’t like those two words either. Maybe his leaderly gaze will make Pidge change her mind.

But Hunk’s hopes are dashed when she shakes her head. “There are way too many for us to take as one. They’ll realise pretty quick that we’re there, and if we don’t hit their different locations at once, they’re gonna get out of there faster than we can say quiznak.”

Hunk takes a deep breath. He’ll be alone. Or well, not _alone_ , ‘cause they’ll still be on the comms or whatever. But _physically_ by himself, which is…scary. “So, er, where do you want me then?”

Pidge glances at Shiro, who nods back at her, and she outlines her plans for Hunk. “You’re going to have to protect the ship with the prisoners while I try get into their network.”

Hunk laughs nervously. “Right. So not a big deal, just…the protecting the entire point of our mission? Drawing the most fire? Cool. Cool.”

Pidge smiles wryly. “Yeah…and we’ve only got one shot at this. Once they’re onto the fact that I tracked them, we’ve lost them.”

Even better. “So…no pressure, right?”

Lance smiles at him, raising a fond eyebrow. “Plenty of pressure, big boy. But you can do it, right?”

Can he? Probably. Does he want to? No. But…

“I can do it,” Hunk says, taking a deep breath. “I can do it,” he repeats. And he can; he’s got his team with him, and that makes him invincible.

“Let’s suit up.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are appreciated as always :) Can also be shared on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/starchydreams/status/940753562048585730) and [Tumblr](http://shiroganedefencesquad.tumblr.com/post/168484755399/learning-curve-my-piece-for-the)! Thanks for reading!


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